I promise to post up some good pics I have of AF from Sasquatch, both '07 & '05.

Do so urgently.

Originally Posted by saxomophone

What's the Merge thing? I'm totally out of the loop with AF

Merge records are having their 20th anniversary festival thing in North Carolina this summer. Aside from Obama stuff and the odd charity thing, it's the only thing I can think of this year that might get them out of hiding.

I'm very doubtful, to be honest, but I wouldn't have predicted the Obama ball either, so who knows.

That's pretty much what they've been whining about yeah, that an apparently Canadian band was playing the American inauguration.

Which is hilarious, I mean, even if you consider Arcade Fire a totally Canadian band, it's not like Jeremy Gara's presence at the Staff Party personally put 1,000 Detroit steelworkers out of jobs or anything.

No offense to the steelworkers, it's just that I don't think their drumming during Black Wave is especially impressive.

Phone number Arcade Fire started spreading around. It was before the album's name was widely known, so people weren't always actually sure what they were calling. You rang up, and somebody would answer the phone, usually either Will or Richard.

Later on, when word got out that it actually really was them, they set up an automated answerphone service. It still never said at any point that it was the Arcade Fire's number you were calling, it just sounded like the creepiest self-help hotline ever. Pressing different digits asked you different questions or played previews of Neon Bible songs or whatever, and sometimes, they called you back.

Anyway, people really ran with it. They told fairytales or stories about their lives or just tried to explain why they loved the band or whatever, but they got a huge number of calls. It was cool, it turned into a kind of PostSecret thing. Just people wanting to talk to them. You can hear some of the messages on the Neon Bible website, and there's a bunch of them all through Miroir Noir.

My two favourites being:

Little girl's birthday.

Very unimpressed dude:

There's another pretty arresting one in the film from this guy who just sounds completely lost in his life, like really profoundly unhappy. Must be weird to get somebody calling you with something so intense just 'cause you make some songs.

EDIT:

People who say you can't buy happiness are stupid. Or at least, people who say you can't trade a vintage analog synth for it.

I'll try to get those pics sorted and uploaded soon. I found a couple of pics of them (AF) sitting on the ground at the back of the stage at Sasquatch '05 watching Wilco's set.

Originally Posted by Cpt. Funkaho

Man, the Beatles were overrated like gravity is overrated. ......... Say what you want, but statements like "the Beatles were overrated" make me much less likely to listen to anything you say afterward.